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Chandraseniya Kayastha Prabhu (CKP) is an ethno-religious clan of South Asia. It is part of the broader Kayastha community. Traditionally, the CKPs have been granted the upper caste status, which allowed them to study the Vedas and perform religious rites along with Brahmins.

The CKPs are today concentrated primarily in western Maharashtra, southern Gujarat, and Madhya Pradesh (Indore region). They played an important role in the establishment and administration of the Maratha empire.

Etymology and history

The name Chandraseniya may be a corruption of the word "Chandrashreniya", meaning from the valley of the Chenab River (also known as "Chandra"). This theory states that the word "Kayastha" originates from the term "Kaya Desha", an ancient name for the region around Ayodhya.

The CKP community became more prominent during the Maratha rule. Several of the Maratha King Shivaji's generals and ministers, such as Murarbaji Deshpande and Baji Prabhu Deshpande, were CKPs.

The CKPs have traditionally placed themselves in the Kshatriya varna, next only to the Brahmins, and also followed the Brahmin rituals, like the sacred thread ceremony. The other communities, at times, have contested their upper-caste status. In 1801-1802 CE (1858 Samvat), a Pune-based council of 626 Brahmins from Maharashtra, Karnataka and other areas made a formal declaration that the CKPs are twice-born (upper caste) people who are expected to follow the Kshatriya duties. When the prominent Marathi historian VK Rajwade contested their claimed Kshatriya status in a 1916 essay, the CKP writer Prabodhankar Thackeray wrote a text outlining the identity of the CKP caste, and its contributions to the Maratha empire. In this text, Gramanyachya Sadhyant Itihas, he wrote that the CKPs "provided the cement" for Shivaji's swaraj (self-rule) "with their blood".

Culture

The CKPs share many common rituals with the upper-caste communities and the study of Vedas and Sanskrit. Unlike most upper-caste communities however, the CKPs through their interaction with Muslims, have traditionally adopted a diet which includes meat, fish, poultry and eggs.

The mother tongue of most of the community is now Marathi, though in Gujarat they also communicate with their neighbours in Gujarati, and use the Gujarati script, while those in Maharashtra speak English and Hindi with outsiders, and use the Devanagari script.

Notable people

• Bal Thackeray, founder of Shiv Sena
• Sonali Bendre, Indian Actress and model.
• C.D.Deshmukh, First RBI Governor
• Krishnanath P Medhekar IPS, A distinguished and highly decorated IPS officer of the 1949 batch, he was the first Director General of Police, Maharashtra State. He also was Commissioner of Police Mumbai City before being promoted and posted as DGP. Post retirement he was a Member of the Maharashtra Public Service Commission.

Also see: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/Medhekar

• Rajan K Medhekar, IPS, An IPS officer of the 1975 batch he belongs to the Kerala Cadre of the IPS. An alumnus of Cathedral & John Connon Boy's School, BITS Pilani and Mumbai University (from where he did his post-graduation) he served in several important posts in the State of Kerala and at the Centre including Commissioner of Police, Trivandrum, ADGP(Intelligence), ADGP(L&O and Ops), ADGP(Crimes) and DIrector General Home Guards, Civil Defence & Fire Force in Kerala, in various senior posts in the Cabinet Secretariat, Govt of India, in the Border Security Force (BSF) as Special Director General (where he handled anti-Maoist Ops for the BSF, was in charge of BSF's Eastern Region looking after India's birdercwith Bangladesh and BSF HQ at New Delhi in-charge of all Ops, Admin and HR) and lastly as the Director General of the National Security Guard (NSG aka "Black Cats"), India's elite Federal Counter Terrorist & Anti-Hijacking Special Force. He is the recipient of the Police Medal for Meritorious Service and the President's Police Medal for Distinguished Service. After retiring from.the IPS he is an independent Security Consultant, speaker and writer on various matters impinging on National Security, Cyber Security etc.

Also see: https://in.linkedin.com/in/rajanmedhekar https://en.m.wikipedia.org/Medhekar

References

1. D. Shyam Babu; Ravindra S. Khare (2011). Caste in Life: Experiencing Inequalities. Pearson Education India. p. 165. ISBN 978-81-317-5439-9. Retrieved 31 March 2013.
2. Susan Bayly (22 February 2001). Caste, Society and Politics in India from the Eighteenth Century to the Modern Age. Cambridge University Press. p. 414. ISBN 978-0-521-79842-6. Retrieved 12 September 2012.
3. Pran Nath Chopra (1982). Religions and communities of India. Vision Books. p. 88. Retrieved 31 March 2013.
4. Balkrishna Govind Gokhale (1988). Poona in the eighteenth century: an urban history. Oxford University Press. p. 112. Retrieved 17 November 2012.
5. Kumar Suresh Singh (2004). People of India: Maharashtra. Popular Prakashan. pp. 399–400. ISBN 978-81-7991-100-6. Retrieved 17 November 2012.
6. Kali Prasad, ed. (1877). The Kayastha ethnology, an enquiry into the origin of the Chitraguptavansi and Chandrasenavansi Kayasthas. p. 19. Retrieved 17 November 2012.
7. Prachi Deshpande (2007). Creative Pasts: Historical Memory And Identity in Western India, 1700-1960. Columbia University Press. p. 181. ISBN 978-0-231-12486-7. Retrieved 1 September 2012.
8. ^ Kumar Suresh Singh; Rajendra Behari Lal (2003). People of India: Gujarat. Popular Prakashan. pp. 283–. ISBN 978-81-7991-104-4. Retrieved 12 September 2012.
9. Kumar Suresh Singh (2004). People of India: Maharashtra. Popular Prakashan. pp. 398–. ISBN 978-81-7991-100-6. Retrieved 12 September 2012.
10. "Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East". South Asia Bulletin. 16 (2). University of California, Los Angeles: 116. 1996. Retrieved 15 November 2012.

• Use dmy dates from May 2011
• Kayastha
• Social groups of Maharashtra
• Ethnoreligious groups in Asia